European Institute, London School of Economics
June 2025
Voting → Attitudes
Growing evidence that voting affects citizens:
But: Evidence on desirable democratic outcomes is mixed — largely null effects on political knowledge, efficacy, and civic engagement (Holbein and Rangel 2020)
Taken together, these findings might suggest that voting’s primary downstream effects may not be on positive civic virtues, but rather on citizens’ emotional relationships with political groups.
Under a group theory perspective, voting is a declaration of allegiance to a political group which shapes how citizens view themselves and their opponents.
Evidence:
Why first-time voters are crucial:
The nexus: - The cost of changing their opinion is very low because they have no priors - Making voting becomes more consequential, more sticky - filling this attitudinal void
US vs THEM?
US vs THEM?
Voting ? Attitudes
CSES (Wave 5):
Cross-national comparison
Running Variable: Year of birth
Treatment: Voting in previous salient election
Outcome: Affective Polarisation and Partisanship
Estimation: 2SLS (optimal bandwidth) and robust bias-corrected inference (Calonico, Cattaneo and Titiunik, 2014)
UKHLS:
Multiple Elections (2010, and 2019) and Party system transformation
Running Variable: Month and year of birth
Treatment: Voting in current election
Outcome: Affective Polarisation (3 vs. 6 parties)
Estimation: 2SLS (optimal bandwidth) and robust bias-corrected inference
Main Finding: Voting in salient elections significantly increases affective polarization (both unweighted and weighted)
Effect size: 0.19-point increase in affective polarization, only marginally significant at 0.10 level when estimated with optimal bandwidth
| ITT Effect | 2SLS Optimal | |
|---|---|---|
| (Intercept) | 0.95* | |
| [0.92; 0.98] | ||
| voting_eligibility | -0.02 | |
| [-0.08; 0.03] | ||
| year_cen | -0.00 | |
| [-0.01; 0.01] | ||
| salient_voting | -0.02 | |
| [-0.07; 0.02] | ||
| Num. obs. | 6913 | 5402 |
Wave 2 (2010): Two-Party Dominance Era
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.501** (0.171) | 0.339* (0.136) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.679** (0.238) | 0.421** (0.157) |
| N | 1391 | 1391 | 1960 | 1960 |
| Bandwidth | 5.79 | 5.79 | 9.10 | 9.10 |
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.342* (0.147) | 0.178 (0.114) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.457* (0.208) | 0.299* (0.136) |
| N | 1469 | 1469 | 2034 | 2034 |
| Bandwidth | 5.99 | 5.99 | 9.09 | 9.09 |
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.498** (0.165) | 0.317* (0.131) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.675** (0.228) | 0.410** (0.151) |
| N | 1382 | 1382 | 1969 | 1969 |
| Bandwidth | 5.74 | 5.74 | 9.14 | 9.14 |
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.164 (0.119) | 0.245** (0.095) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.287 (0.193) | 0.556*** (0.142) |
| N | 2578 | 2578 | 2888 | 2888 |
| Bandwidth | 6.19 | 6.19 | 7.17 | 7.17 |
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.066 (0.112) | 0.137 (0.091) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.129 (0.185) | 0.355** (0.137) |
| N | 2753 | 2753 | 3135 | 3135 |
| Bandwidth | 6.11 | 6.11 | 7.29 | 7.29 |
| RD (Sharp) | ITT Effect | RD (Fuzzy) | 2SLS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 0.154 (0.122) | 0.254* (0.100) | – | – |
| Voting | – | – | 0.287 (0.196) | 0.589*** (0.144) |
| N | 2462 | 2462 | 2873 | 2873 |
| Bandwidth | 5.85 | 5.85 | 7.17 | 7.17 |
Preliminary Takeaways:
Context matters: Effects conditional on party system structure — voting seems to produce polarisation in multi-party contexts but not in simpler two-party systems.
Limitations:
Refining the Estimation:
Understanding Mechanisms:
Institutional variation:
Austria (voting age 16) and Brazil (compulsory 18-70, optional 16-17) and Germany (16-17 year-olds vote in municipal but not state/federal elections)
Compulsory voting contexts: Australia, Belgium, Brazil